No. 5 Diamond Heels claim weekend series over Stony Brook with 6-1 win

The No. 5 North Carolina baseball team (11-0) defeated Stony Brook (3-5), 6-1, on Saturday afternoon at Boshamer Stadium.

Taking the mound for the Diamond Heels was graduate righty Jake Knapp, making just his second start since missing the entire 2024 season with an injury. He pitched five innings and struck out eight batters, allowing just one run and recording the win. 

“I think it just goes with confidence, just trust in my arm being back out there for 90 pitches,” Knapp said about his return from injury before later adding, “it’s hard not to take it for granted when it’s not taken away from you.”

Knapp set the tone early, striking out the Seawolves’ leadoff man looking. A second strikeout and Knapp had escaped the inning with two men left on base.

Junior center fielder Kane Kepley got North Carolina on the board in the first, scoring on a ground out after swiping third base. The Seawolves got nothing in the top of the second and it remained 1-0 UNC.

A misplayed pop fly in center field allowed a double from first-year left fielder Perry Hargett, who scored on the next pitch as sophomore catcher Macaddin Dye ripped a single just past a diving Stony Brook defender. After loading the bases, a Seawolf double play shut down any prospect of more North Carolina runs.

A two-run homer way over the left field wall from graduate first baseman Hunter Stokely in the bottom of the third made it 4-0 in favor of the Diamond Heels.

“[Hunter] is definitely more coachable,” head coach Scott Forbes said. “Him and coach Wierzbicki have really worked hard together on his swing path to get the ball in the air more with his power, because he’s got a ton of it.”

Stony Brook scored on a Knapp wild pitch, which was immediately followed up by an missed ground ball for an error on a line drive down second base. Knapp's sixth strikeout of the game would put an end to the top of the fourth.

“We were all saying how they got long loopy swings, so we were trying to attack the outside part of the plate,” Dye said. “It’s little things like that, it’s big as time goes on.”

The second two-run homer of the game was hit off the scoreboard by sophomore catcher Luke Stevenson, bringing his season total up to a team-leading 13 RBIs, tying him with Stokley. The score was 6-1 North Carolina at the bottom of the fourth.

Knapp continued to make his mark, striking out two more in the top of the fifth to give him a career high eight strikeouts, shattering his previous D-I high mark of six.

After five innings, first-year righty Ryan Lynch relived Knapp. Lynch struck out three in the sixth and two more in the seventh to dim the Seawolves’ comeback hopes. Stony Brook had not recorded a hit since the fifth as the game went into an offensive slumber on both sides.

A Seawolf double in the top of the 8th ended their drought, but a sixth Lynch strikeout and a well-timed throw from third to first snapped any hopes of Stony Brook scoring. Despite its lack of runs, Stony Brook still hit quite well in this contest, recording eight hite to UNC’s 11.

“He’s got nasty stuff, he’s hard to square up,” Forbes said about Lynch. “He’s a big, physical kid — bigger than most at his age — and that’s a good weapon to have out of the bullpen.”

A pop fly that landed just out of reach of the Stony Brook center fielder gave senior second baseman Jackson Van De Brake his third hit in a row to round out a day where he got on base in all four of his plate appearances and scored one run.

Junior righty Matthew Matthijs would finish out the day for the Diamond Heels, striking out three batters in the top of the ninth. UNC struck out 17 total batters. The Seawolves struck out just four.

UNC closes out the series against the Seawolves on Sunday at 1 p.m.

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